Board of Directors

SFPIRG is an independent, student-funded society. To ensure that our work reflects the ideas and values of the student community at SFU with whom we work, SFPIRG is managed by a student-directed board of directors. The board of directors is charged with guiding the direction, vision, and growth of SFPIRG. The current board of directors was appointed in May 2017 and will retire at the end of April 2018. See below to learn more about our Directors!

Interested in joining our Board of Directors outside of the regular nomination period in the Spring semester? Send us an email at info@sfpirg.ca and we’ll get you set up with an application form! Applications are reviewed by our Board, who make the final decision about appointments to vacant positions.

Emma Warner Chee

Emma is an angry and silly femme of Chinese and European ancestry. She is interested in supporting the movements to smash colonialism, borders and the prison system on these unceded Coast Salish Territories, across so-called Canada and beyond. Although she is currently studying sociology, she prefers to be in the garden, creating art or banner-making with friends. She is passionate about anti-racism and food justice, and is currently a volunteer for the Women’s Centre Garden as well as a member of the Racialized Resistance and Healing Action group at SFPIRG.

Maisaloon Al-Ashkar

Maisaloon/ميسلون is a wise and sassy 20-years-old Muslim woman and displaced Palestinian who speaks her truth unapologetically, and does so with a vibrantly determined smile. She is a racialized settler on ancestral, unceded and occupied Coast Salish Territories, committed to supporting Indigenous sovereignties and disrupting all systems of oppression. She’s doing a double major in First Nations Studies and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Maisaloon has been involved with SFPIRG throughout her studies at SFU. She is especially excited about the Racialized Resistance and Healing Action Group, where she loves experiencing the collective resilience of grassroots solidarity-building efforts. She’s the Women’s Centre Coordinator at Vancouver Status of Women, which is a pro-choice, trans-inclusive organization that supports a diversity of women and operates through intersectional feminist frameworks. Maisaloon’s ancestors of Palestinian farmers, land defenders and refugees are at the core of her commitments to supporting systemically marginalized communities in leading their liberation struggles on their own terms.

Matthew Provost

Matthew Provost is Blackfoot from the Piikani Nation in Southern Alberta. As an Undergraduate he is studying Communications and First Nation Studies. Matthew works very closely with the Indigenous community at SFU advocating for Indigenous issues, working on Indigenous Alternative Media which is an outlet for FNMI individuals. IAM is a student run monthly zine that shares Indigenous voices, art, and Indigenous social issues. He wants to see Indigenous students succeed at every level in education and that is his priority to make sure his community is taken care of and recognized on these Unceded Territories.

Rodney Stehr

Rodney is a 20-something undergraduate of political science who dresses like the sort of person that might gentrify your neighbourhood. His roots lie in Lithuania and in Fiji, and he is passionate about outfitting queer youth with the skills, resources, and knowledge to challenge the systems and institutions that exploit, tokenize, and erase them. He is presently not spending his time propping up or defending “progressive” politicians that support or champion horrible policies that displace, disenfranchise, and criminalize the communities that they pretend to advocate for during election time.

Damon Chen

Damon started as an SFU student in 2004 and was connected to SFPIRG for much of his undergraduate time. Since his return to SFU, issues like gender equity, LGBT equity, classism, Indigenous rights, and racism have significantly informed the work that he does, and the way that he lives his life. He has worked for organizations like Pivot Legal Society and the Red Cross, as a program coordinator for social justice based youth exchange programs, as a restorative justice facilitator, and more. As he pursues his PDP and his masters, he continues to be passionate about the work that SFPIRG does, and hopes to contribute back to an organization that was so formative for him in his youth.

We acknowledge that SFPIRG occupies unceded Indigenous land belonging to Coast Salish peoples. Unceded means that this land was never surrendered, relinquished or handed over in any way. We recognize that the unceded land that we occupy at SFU Burnaby includes the territories of the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlem Nations. Learn more about Acknowledgements of Indigenous Territories and how to make them.